Headline Details: The FossaSat-1 Satellite has a 5x5x5cm structure and a total mass of 250gram. It has a variety of
objectives/missions that are trying to be
accomplished.
The first is the general development of
miniaturized and inexpensive satellite systems
for space applications using off the shelf
components. As amateurs, it is a huge step
forward for our nation being able to prove that
we can successfully design, manufacture &
deploy a satellite in orbit for amateur
investigation and use with a limited budget.
We will also be testing a new solar panel
mechanism, making this satellite the smallest
to have deployable solar arrays. These solar
arrays will additionally increase the radar
reflectivity significantly to that of a standard
cubesat.
The second is the promotion & involvement of
students in aerospace development on an
international level, giving them the
opportunity to test their hardware and
software experiments on the satellite. We will
be hosting STEM workshops & competitions
for secondary students to participate in, a full
section of the satellite is dedicated to these
experiments for educational research.
The third and main mission of the satellite is
the testing of a new experimental RF chirp
modulation called LoRa, this new modulation
hugely increases the link budget, reduces the
power consumed and reduces the cost of
receivers. It has successfully been tested
before in orbit aboard TTNSAT-1 for a short
period of time though we are trying to prove it
using dedicated hardware. Thanks to LoRa we
are able to receive and send telemetry &
commands with a ground station using a
dipole antenna and a simple SDR or LoRa
module. The output power from the
transmitter required for the correct reception
during a pass is also very low at well under
100mW, being spread spectrum at such low
power it poses no interference risk. It operates
at a considerable level below the noise level of
other systems and would cause no interference
to weak narrowband signals.
Students & Amateurs will be able to receive
telemetry from the satellite with inexpensive
hardware, expanding & promoting the
amateur satellite community in the youth.
Uplink challenges will also be carried out with
rewards for amateurs. All we do is completely
open source, all information regarding the
design of the satellite & how to decode its
information will be clearly laid out & hosted by
us, promoting its use.
Millions of LoRa devices are in use and they
are widely available and easy to build by
amateurs.
We will provide decoding software for SDR
use in order to allow anyone to decode LoRa
using common existing hardware & host
software for users to submit telemetry data,
making all data public and rewarding users
with certificates & awards. Proposing UHF downlinks using FSK RTTY 45 BAUD ITA2, 100mW 183hz Shift and
LoRa 125kHz, Chirp Spread Spectrum
Modulation, 180 bps, 100mW. Planning a Q4 2109 launch into a 385km SSO

Application Date:

29 Oct 2018

Freq coordination completed on

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